Event Details

From former NPR Moscow correspondent Gregory Feifer comes an incisive portrait that draws on vivid personal stories to portray the forces that have shaped the Russian character for centuries-and continue to do so today.

This is a ticketed event and registration is required. All attendees must have a ticket. This event is a fundraiser for the NPC Journalism Institute. Books must be purchased through the NPC. No outside books or memorabilia permitted. All sales are final; no refunds will be issued.

“Russians” explores the seeming paradoxes of life in Russia by unraveling the nature of its people: what is it in their history, their desires, and their conception of themselves that makes them baffling to the West? Using the insights of his decade as a journalist in Russia, Feifer corrects pervasive misconceptions by showing that much of what appears inexplicable about the country is logical when seen from the inside. He gets to the heart of why the world's leading energy producer continues to exasperate many in the international community. And he makes clear why President Vladimir Putin remains popular even as the gap widens between the super-rich and the great majority of poor.

Traversing the world's largest country from the violent North Caucasus to Arctic Siberia, Feifer conducted hundreds of intimate conversations about everything from sex and vodka to Russia's complex relationship with the world. From fabulously wealthy oligarchs to the destitute elderly babushki who beg in Moscow's streets, he tells the story of a society bursting with vitality under a leadership rooted in tradition and often on the edge of collapse despite its authoritarian power.

What emerges is a rare portrait of a unique land of extremes whose forbidding geography, merciless climate, and crushing corruption has nevertheless produced some of the world's greatest art and some of its most remarkable scientific advances. “Russians” is an expertly observed, gripping profile of a people who will continue challenging the West for the foreseeable future.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014 from 6:30 PM to 8:00 PM (EST)

Organizer

National Press Club Journalism Institute

The mission of the non-profit National Press Club Journalism Institute is to train communications professionals in a changing media environment, provide scholarships to the next generation of journalists, recognize excellence in journalism, house the records of the history of journalism in the nation’s capital and promote a free press, the cornerstone of a free society.

Located in the Eric Friedheim Library of the prestigious National Press Club in downtown Washington, D.C., the Institute is the premier research, reference and education venue for journalists, historians, academics and students in the nation’s capital.